Some things from our past feel so precious, so sacred, that letting them go seems unthinkable. I wanted to cling to objects that held comfort, safety, or connection in a childhood where so little felt safe. But sometimes the things we hold onto the tightest are the very things the enemy uses to bind us.

I grew up watching my Papaw use a dipper that hung on a nail over the kitchen sink. Every day when he came in from the garden, he reached for the dipper to drink water or take his medication. It was part of his rhythm, part of his identity, part of the memory of who he was to me. When he died, everyone wanted that dipper including me. But unlike everyone else, the attachment I had to it ran unnaturally deep.

My mom ended up with it first, and I loathed that she had it. When the day finally came that I left home, I packed the dipper hidden in the bottom of a box of clothes. I fought with my mom over it often, but I refused to ever give it back.

Her family would come to visit and sit around drinking coffee while telling story after story about that dipper. To them it was nostalgia. But for me, it was more than memory.

It was an obsession.
It was part of my identity.
It was an idol.

I held that dipper in higher regard than my own wellbeing. I would have rather died than let someone take it from me. I thought the attachment I had to it was tied to the love I felt when I looked at it. I loved how I could usher in the feeling of being with him again when I held it.

I didn’t know I had parts that was demonically tied to it.
I didn’t know it carried a generational curse.
I didn’t know it was giving the occult legal access to influence me.
I didn’t know the enemy was using it as a portal to access me.

I only knew I cherished it and couldn’t let it go even if I wanted to.

“You shall not bring an abomination into your house, lest you become cursed like it.” (Deuteronomy 7:26)

Sometimes the most dangerous objects are the ones wrapped in sentiment, memory, and longing. The ones that feel like a connection to who we used to be or that carry a story, but not the whole story.

Yahweh wasn’t trying to take my memories of Papaw away. He wasn’t trying to take comfort away. He wasn’t trying to strip me of identity. He was trying to set me free. But when He asked me to get rid of that dipper, it was one of the few times that I wanted to push back with a hard “No!”

The enemy loves to hide in nostalgia and what feels familiar. He knows we hate change and plays on the guilt we feel at the thought of losing things we think we could never part with. I’m not saying every sentimental item is demonic, but some are, and we need to be willing to face the truth when that is the case. If an item has a hold on you, stirs unhealthy reactions or brings heaviness or spiritual turmoil into your life those are big clues that need addressed. “Little children (believers, dear ones), guard yourselves from idols—[false teachings, moral compromises, and anything that would take God’s place in your heart].” (1 John 5:21)

When I finally became willing to be obedient and get rid of it, all hell broke loose in the spirit realm. I felt physically sick. My system completely freaked out, and suicide programming got activated. I have a twin brother who lives in another state and the day that I got rid of it, he had a heart attack. Coincidence? Maybe. But when you have seen as many demonic shenanigans as I have seen, it becomes really hard to think much of anything happens by chance.

I grieved that dipper for a long time. I thought the guilt would consume me. I felt like I had betrayed my memories, my childhood, and the parts of me that loved my Papaw so fiercely. It felt like I had severed a lifeline, and for a while, the grief sat on my chest like an elephant. But I knew that I had shut down one of Satan’s access points into my life. It was a hard lesson and only the beginning of the things I would need to give up. Some things are just hard. There is no easy way to walk it out. You just do it because you need to do it.

Today, I can look back with clarity and compassion on the younger me who clung to that dipper like it was oxygen. I understand why she did it. I understand what she needed and why it was so hard to let go. If you feel an unnatural attachment to something from your past, ask Yeshua to reveal the truth.
Memories are worth keeping, but bondage is not.

“Whom the Son sets free shall be free indeed.”
— John 8:36

OPEN+DOORWAYS+FOR+DEMONIC+OPPRESSION+AND+GUIDELINES+FOR+PRAYER+TO+BREAK+FREE+OF+THEM..pdf